The Turtles are back! With a scant year turnaround, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got its sequel in March of 1991, at the absolute peak of Turtle Mania. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, lugubriously awesome subtitle and all, takes advantage of its predecessor’s achievements, utilizing the same masterful Jim Henson bodysuits. The Turtles are already taken care of, established, so Ooze’s doubled budget can go towards expanding and correcting any oversights from Part One. Most of the work done, new director Michael Pressman (of 1977’s The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training) rather delivers a lighter, more audience-friendly Turtles.
A common fan criticism of Part One, as much as anyone is even allowed to question anything Turtle, is that the film sides in tone with the comic book rather than the TV show. Comic creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird enjoyed much more influence over the film series than the TV/toy line, so even acquiescing to fans’ demands, there is only so far Ooze can travel out of the “grounded” ninja universe. So no Technodrome, no Krang, an absolute refusal to inject any more elements from the show. Besides, the Turtles’ personalities (and headband colors) are already as much credit to the show that Eastman and Laird are willing to give.
The other issue with Part One, on account of spineless crybaby sissy parent groups the nation over, is its violence. As a major detriment to Ooze, the exciting ninja action of the first is thus dropped for something a lot lighter, a lot more slapstick, a lot closer to what 3 Ninjas would someday puke out (but still a whole lot better…). The Turtles’ introductory fight scene, against a posse of pantyhose-headed thugs, invokes much bizarre “comic” prop-fu, replacing a bō with yo-yo, nunchakus with sausage links, and doing absolutely nothing with the potentially-deadly katanas.
This change in tone at least benefits a couple of the turtles, Michelangelo and Donatello, whose light-hearted personas were buried in the first film’s darkness. For once, Donatello’s tech-savvy ability to type on a computer (considered a superpower in 1991) comes in handy. Raphael, on the other turtle-hand, has basically nothing to do now, as Ooze has no use for his formerly angsty ways.
Perhaps that is the reason for the loss of Josh Pais as both Raph’s body and voice and soul (now it’s Kenn Troum and Laurie Faso and none at all, respectively). Otherwise the Turtles’ voices remain the same – Brian Tochi as Leo, Robbie Rist as Mike, Adam Carl as Don…Wait up! That’s new; Corey Feldman voiced Donny before! For the Feldster had suddenly entered the “washed up and stoned” portion of all former child actors’ careers, and no one wants a Turtle with a heroin addiction! A pizza addiction, however…
One final bit of Turtle-related casting: As thanks for his brilliant performance as Donatello’s body in Part One, Ernie Reyes, Jr., is given the suit free role of “token human” Keno, pizza delivery boy and martial artist (and subject of the Turtles’ opening scene rescue). This role filled, Casey Jones doesn’t once step in Ooze. Odd, since he’s the one who actually killed the Shredder previously, operating the garbage crusher and all.
April O’Neil, however, is still around, though now she’s played by Paige Turco. (Is there any actorly consistency?!) The Turtles are still crashed at her pad, this story taking place presumably scant days after Part One. And of course there is always Master Splinter (Kevin Clash, vocals), who resembles Yoda more and more every day – result of the same character type and puppetry approach. Whilst debating a return to a new home in the lovely sewers of NY, Splinter launches into a helpful expository lecture, for those coming in late. If somehow the Ninja Turtle premise escapes you, this is all the justification they’ll grant – exposition from a gigantic mutated rat.
We (re)learn of the Foot Clan, how the Turtles kicked Foot butt. And about how the Shredder died –
The Shredder is alive (Francois Chau now)! No reason given, beyond the fact it’s a sequel. Only one thing rests on old Shred Head’s, er, head: Revenge on the Turtles! Rebooting the Foot, and chief thug Tatsu (genuine samurai badass Toshishiro Obata), we forget about world domination, or criminal omnipotence, or any of that; all the Shredder wants is the death of four big reptiles.
Events get started with a newscast from April, who is apparently allowed to follow ad nauseum whatever story she damn well pleases at any time. (And openly discuss the Turtles on air – What sort of a reporter is April?!) Today it’s ooze news, as she milks exposition out of Professor Jordan Perry (David Warner, the bad guy in TRON, Time Bandits, Time After Time…), who is very emphatically not Baxter Stockman! (Even if the Professor is a good guy in Ooze, no reason we can’t sow the seeds for future sequels, right?) Anyway, the Professor oversees Techno-Global Research Industries’ massive disposal of ooze, ooze from 15 years hence, ooze which is currently mutating dandelions into massive papier-mâché props.
(“Ooze,” by the way, is the official term for this green-glowing material, of the sort omnipresently indigenous to the ‘80s, alongside slime, goo, gel, muck, sewage, toxic waste, Troma movies, the whole of Nickelodeon’s output from 1981 through 1985. Rather knowingly, note Leo’s correction “It wasn’t slime, it was ooze!” Distinguishing radioactive semen types was serious business back then!)
The Secret of the Ooze purports to reveal dread new discoveries about the Turtles’ origin-by-ooze. The big reveal: the ooze came from TGRI! And the company is responsibly trying to clean up their oozing mess now, so there’s not even any great conspiracy! It’s all rather anticlimactic, so obviously so that Donatello even laments this fact on screen when the time comes. (The Professor’s explanation waits for a good 70% of Ooze, so it is detrimental there’s nothing more to the Turtles’ chelonian origins.)
Ah hah!, but the Shredder knows of ooze too! Ooooooooooze! He learns of it when a minion returns with one of those big-ass dandelions. This is diametrically opposed to the Shredder’s original orders (just follow April a lot), but it’s also smarter than his orders. Repeatedly, the Shredder seems to have the stupidest notions of anyone in this picture, leaving the Foot to foot his villainy. So it’s only at a lowly henchman’s suggestion that the Shredder takes an interest in the ooze’s mutagenic properties, and sends his Foot afoot on an ooze cruise.
Hence the Turtles and Foot Clan appear at the TGRI labs at the same time (an amusingly cheap set, like a Chuck E Cheese’s). They battle over the lone remaining canister of ooze, passing it around like a game of Foot-ball. Get it?! Ooze’s lighter, fluffier Turtles “surf” the office chairs, as they add a little Three Stooges to their ninjitsu. Then Tatsu gets his hands on the ooze and actually screams aloud “Ninja vanish!” The Foot beats foot and run, ooze in the Foot’s hands.
Using the kidnapped Professor as his guide into the wonderful world of ooze, the Shredder seeks to create his own monsters to battle the Turtles – ‘cause there’s nothing else a criminal mastermind can do with 2 pints of plot juice. Now, these new beasts are central to Ooze, even though Eastman and Laird fought tooth and nail against the addition of mutants, despite mutation being the premise of their comic! But it doesn’t matter, for after a long, dramatic King Kong reference, the Shredder opens his cage to reveal…
Actually, that’s not the case. It’s just what should have happened. Instead we get…
A snapping turtle and a wolf, Tokka and Rahzar. This was Eastman’s and Laird’s compromise, so determined were they to deny fans what they wanted in Bebop and Rocksteady. The result is a lame neither-nor, though at least another boss fight in “Turtles in Time.” But in defense of Tokka and Rahzar, they are voiced by Frank Welker. That’s Frank “every cartoon ever made” Welker, the highest-grossing actor of all time!
Here’s an example of the Shredder’s villainous idiocy: Upset that his creations are babies (“Mommy!” they cry), he intends to simply murder Tokka and Rahzar without a second’s consideration. It’s only the intervention of the Professor, a good guy, which saves the creatures. So we can all thank him for the future trouble the Turtles must face.
For now, though, the Turtles are busy seeking a new lair, April having booted them out as the pizza-scarfing wastrel layabouts they are. They ultimately discover Ooze’s centerpiece set, an abandoned subway station complete with stained glass and warm, inviting lighting. Our heroic ninjas thus play Martha Stewart, and set about fixing the place up.
Well, Mike and Leo and Donny do. Raph, as the only proactive member of his team, takes his one and only Ooze-based sabbatical, teaming up with Keno to infiltrate the Foot Clan. Keno undergoes the gang’s initiation tests, to see if the Foot fits. The last test, to silently remove bells from a dummy in the dark, falls to Raphael to complete, it out of Keno’s skill set. Presumably this means the whole Foot Clan can do this, which is hard to swallow.
Raph follows the Foot’s steps back to the Foot locker, that junkyard the Shrekker resurrected in and hasn’t since bothered to leave. But then Raph is captured, as Keno runs off to warn the other three reptiles.
So Mike, Leo and Donny now arrive in the junkyard, and they are captured! (This sequence is entertaining, with good running gags, but sort of desultory.) The Shredder prepares a Saw trap with which to make delicious turtle soup, when Master Splinter arrives to free his pupils, then vanish for the whole remainder of the film. “Cowabunga!” he at least says.
Another Turtle-based fight scene breaks out, with Tokka and Rahzar entering into battle for the first time. It seems the Foot has the upper hand! It’s too much for the Turtles, who beat a hasty turtle retreat back to the warm, protective embrace of New York’s sewers, dragging the Professor in tow.
Re-ensconced in the subway, the Professor techno-babbles on about “ooze this” and “ooze that” and “ooze on first” and the “de-mutagenation process” and whatnot else. Thank Yoshi that Donatello is there to translate the Professor’s needlessly verbose loquaciousness into something the kiddies can understand. Basically the solution to Tokka and Rahzar is this: to feed them specially-made anti-ooze, and reverse the mutation process. (I think I’ve seen this plot in some “X-Men” storylines.) The anti-ooze must be eaten. Good thing it’s not a suppository!
The Shredder calls out the Turtles, threatening to let his new pets run rampage. (Two unstoppable monsters at his beck and call, and all the Shredder can conceive of is just killing the Turtles already. And even this scheme is hatched by someone else, Tatsu, because the Shredder is surprisingly incompetent.)
The Turtles meet for a showdown at the construction site next to the discotheque next to the docks, meaning three fight sequences to go. They even bring donuts, which was mighty generous of them…No, wait, these donuts are for Tokka and Rahzar, a chance to slip these oozehounds the pill. I’ve tried the same thing with my mom’s cats, and believe me it doesn’t work. The same is the case for the Turtles, who must instead fight the Foot, and Tokka, and Rahzar, and Tatsu, and the Shredder, and – well, that’s it, actually.
Onward – to the discotheque! This is the stage where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze earns its infamy, for presiding over the crowded dance floor is none other than…Vanilla Ice (as himself)!
Robert Matthew Van Winkle (the Ice) was a white rapper back in the day when that phrase sounded even stupider than it does today. Here the flat-topped freak appears at the height of his “Ice Ice Baby,” Madonna-humping, Cool as Ice days. And everything the Turtles stand for dies a sudden and ignoble death. And it’s entertaining as hell.
One of the central notions of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in all their forms is their removal from society, on account of them being 15-year-old mutated turtles who know ninjitsu (that old sawhorse). Like Hellboy or the Men in Black or roughly 50% of all other superheroes, their success depends upon remaining a secret from the public at large. So here they are, fighting two miniature kaiju in a thumping dance club, its patrons too coked out like Corey Feldman to realize something is up.
In order to prevent panic, Vanilla Ice and the V.I.P. (Vanilla Ice Posse) heroically decide to hide the Turtles’ identity – by composing a rap! An ad hoc, on-the-spot “Ninja Rap” filled with plot-specific knowledge – all this to make the Turtles seem a part of the club’s obviously-ridiculous show. Oh, and with pre-choreographed dance moves, of course, and so many other elements which rather shatter the illusion that The Secret of the Ooze is anything more than an advertisement for itself.
Ninja, Ninja, RAP! Ninja, Ninja, RAP!
GO GO GO
Go Ninja, Go Ninja, GO; Go Ninja, Go ninja, GO!
Go Ninja, Go Ninja. GO; Go Ninja, Go ninja, GO!
GO GO GO GO
“They’re breakdance-fighting!” as Mugatu would say. Fueled by the almighty power of rap, the Ninja Turtles successfully de-mutate Tokka and Rahzar. Triumphant, they take to the stage alongside the Ice, like something out of “Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation.”
Of course, the Shredder shreds this little love-in. For he retains the last remaining drops of delicious ooze, upon which he sups most heartily, becoming…
A SUPER SHREDDER!
Somehow, no one in the club even notices this! But the Turtles do, facing down their nemesis on the docks – a nemesis they couldn’t defeat in human form, now roided out like Bane in Batman & Robin. They clearly cannot defeat him, but that still leaves the Super Shredder’s worst enemy: the Super Shredder.
In a characteristic moment of not thinking at all, the Super Shredder collapses the pier down upon himself, which somehow results in his unquestioned, canonical death, even when garbage compactor crushing couldn’t do it. Good thing the Turtles didn’t have to have a hand in his demise, keeping this film family friendly and toothless. And their survival? At the last minute they remember what’s been glaringly obvious all franchise long: the Turtles are turtles! Hence they can swim, unlike…humans?
So the Turtles are victorious one way or another, and chart toppers at that! Master Splinter isn’t all that pleased, so instead he just “makes” another “funny,” and all is well.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is a compromised film, pulled in too many directions by the many diverging facets of the greater “Ninja Turtle” franchise. Compared to the singularly-focused Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it cannot help but look inferior. Its box office bears that out, as the second was the thirteenth highest-grossing that year, second to the first, which was fifth – see?
Still, 1991 was the peak of Turtle Mania, hence the movie made merchandizing on top of the multitudinous Tortuga-esque Turtle toy tie-ins tantalizing tykes at the time. Maybe that explains Tokka and Rahzar, for it allows new toys where adding in Bebop and Rocksteady wouldn’t. Nonetheless, the greatest bit of Ooze merchandising was Royal Gelatin Desserts’ “Ooze” based custard treat – Yummy!
One imagines eating “Ooze” today would be a sickening experience, as time will have rendered its suspicious ingredients rancid. The same goes for Ooze, with Vanilla Ice in particular saying “This movie was released on March 22nd, 1991.” Ooze still remains an interesting artifact, and nothing involving the Turtles can ever be truly bad…right?
Related posts:
• No. 1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
• No. 3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)
• No. 4 TMNT (2007)
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